'No humane, intelligent way to justify slavery': Local leaders react to new curriculum

The Florida Board of Education's decision to approve a new curriculum for Black history for K-12 students has drawn reactions from local leaders across the state.

The new 216-page social studies instruction, approved unanimously last week, calls on students to examine "the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation)."

But a clarification line under this section has been the main point of contention among those who voiced opposition to the board's decision:

"Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit," the document reads.

The NAACP and the Florida Education Association, a statewide teachers union, joined other organizations in condemning the new curriculum.

More coverage: What's in Florida's new Black history standards? Read the approved curriculum here

“These new standards are a disservice to Florida’s students and are a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history since 1994," the union said in a statement last week.

Volusia Democratic Black Caucus reacts

Black community advocates statewide, including the Rev. L. Ronald Durham, president of the Volusia County Democratic Black Caucus, have criticized the new curriculum's language.

In a statement issued Sunday, Durham referred to it as "systemic racism in its purest form."

"The move is orchestrated by political operatives who continue to push a right-wing extremist agenda to further divide our country instead of working to heal it," Durham said. "Our schools must teach the full truth of the history of America – the good and the bad.”

In an interview Monday, Durham said the new instruction is "designed to erroneously whitewash the history of this country in a way that makes it palatable to those right-wing supporters whom Ron DeSantis is trying to appease."

"What happened was that enslaved Black people created – which is the proper word to use – those skills during their subjugation," Durham said in an interview Monday. "And those skills they developed were primarily for the benefit of their own survival."

Some of those skills, Durham said, included "strategically knowing how and when to appease their white masters to secretly accomplish certain goals and objectives, such as being able to worship and pray, being able to get food to feed their families, to educate themselves, to hold meetings and ultimately to escape from their human bondage."

Durham said he believes "we have good teachers in our classrooms throughout the state of Florida who recognize the importance of accurately teaching history," which he said helps prepare students for the challenges they face after graduation.

'Factual?' 'Lies?': What to know about Florida schools' new Black history standards

"Whether we like it or not, history is not subject to our ability to change it to suit the whims and wishes of those who oppose it," Durham said.

'There is no humane, intelligent way to justify slavery'

Volusia School Board member Carl Persis said in an interview Monday that he has not yet had time to review the new curriculum in full and is not ready to pass final judgement on the decision.

He said, however, that "it appears that there are a few elements in it that seem to be way out of line."

"Whenever we are teaching any subject that has any social context, we have to make sure that we are presenting that information accurately and not subjectively," Persis said.

He said it is important to rely on "qualified professors, historians" and those who are considered experts in the field for guidance on that historical accuracy.

"They have done all the research so that we can have again this accurate accounting of what took place and when, where, and all the variables," Persis said.

He voiced his rejection of the idea that skills developed by slaves during their bondage could have been personally beneficial.

"A situation that delves into an issue like slavery, it is just astonishing that anyone could say that holding people captive, against their will, is beneficial to them," Persis said. "If it wasn't so terrible, it's laughable.

"Whatever medical assistance (slaves) may have had, whatever skills they may have learned, don't justify the means of holding people against their will and enslaving them," Persis added. "There is no humane, intelligent way to justify slavery."

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DeSantis, Board of Education defend new instruction

The board's move comes after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the "Stop WOKE Act" (CS/HB 7) last year, prohibiting teaching that could make students feel they bear personal responsibility, guilt, anguish or "other forms of psychological distress" for actions in the past committed by members of their own race, and blocked instruction that suggested anyone was "either privileged or oppressed" based on race or skin color.

It also requires discussions about race to be taught in an "objective manner" and bans any discussion “used to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view."

“Everything is there,” education board member and DeSantis appointee MaryLynn Magar told the Tallahassee Democrat last week. “The darkest parts of our history are addressed, and I’m very proud of the task force. I can confidently say that the DOE and the task force believe that African American history is American history, and that’s represented in those standards.”

The state's African American History Standards Workgroup was assembled as part of last year's act to "to review the standards related to African American history," according to the Florida Department of Education.

The task force worked on the new curriculum from February until May, according to the department's communications director, Alex Lanfranconi.

At a press conference Friday, DeSantis defended the curriculum as "factual," telling a CNN reporter, "They're probably going to show some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into, into doing things later in life."

In a statement issued last week, William Allen and Frances Presley Rice, members of Florida’s African American History Standards Workgroup, said the board "proudly stands behind" the new curriculum, which they referred to as “comprehensive and rigorous instruction on African American History."

“The intent of this particular benchmark clarification is to show that some slaves developed highly specialized trades from which they benefitted. This is factual and well-documented," Allen and Rice said.

“Some examples include: blacksmithslikeNed Cobb, Henry Blair, Lewis Latimer and John Henry; shoemakerslikeJames Forten, Paul Cuffe and Betty Washington Lewis; fishing and shipping industry workers like Jupiter Hammon, John Chavis, William Whipper and Crispus Attucks; tailors like Elizabeth Keckley, James Thomas and Marietta Carter; and teacherslikeBetsey Stockton and Booker T. Washington," they added.

It’s “disappointing” that some detractors would devalue the research from the work group and reduce it to “a few isolated expressions without context," the statement said.

Volusia School Board Chair Jamie Haynes, board member Jessie Thompson, Flagler School Board member Will Furry, and Moms for Liberty Volusia chapter president Jenifer Kelly, did not respond to requests for comment.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida history slave curriculum change has local leaders speaking out